Choice
by grab bag
Summary: X3. We all make choices. Some are just harder than others. What was Jimmy, Leech, thinking when he heard all the fighting? What is his story? And what would it feel like to know that all the death and destruction was your fault?


I stand with four vials in my hand, poised at the brink of a choice that affects so much more than myself.

They called me Leech.

They should have called me Apocalypse.

Because I have caused the end of the world.

* * *

On my fourteenth birthday they showed up at my door, some in white lab coats and some in expensive business suits, and they started asking questions about my condition. Momma always told me not to answer any questions about that without either her or a lawyer so I called Momma down and they went into another room and talked for a while. I could only hear snatches of what they said but Momma sounded angry and then the important looking men in the expensive clothes said something and then Momma got quieter. A few minutes later they called me into the room and had me shake everyone's hand. They all looked at one man who'd been very quiet and he closed his eyes and waited and then he gave the smallest nod and then they all turned to me like nothing had happened but I knew what it was. Then they explained a lot of stuff about the "situation" with "people like me" and how most people weren't comfortable with us and that maybe some of us would like to change their lives around and maybe I could help them do that. I asked what I had to do with that and they said I was very special and they'd like to just examine me, "like a doctor's check-up, but longer," they said.

I knew what they were talking about. I knew I was a mutant. All the kids at school talked about them but most of them only said what they'd heard from their parents which was either that we were just misunderstood and needed protection or that we were all freaks and should be herded up into special communities to keep us away from normal people. All of my friends are mutants and we all thought that that sounded an awful lot like what happened to Anne Frank which we had to read about in History class once. A couple of my friends who are mutants can't tell their parents because their parents are the ones who don't like us. I used to think that my friends were only nice to me because when we hang out they can pretend everything is normal, but they would call me or IM me sometimes too to talk so I don't think that's the reason anymore.

Anyway these important looking people told me that I wouldn't be forced to do anything I didn't want to and that if everything worked out we might need to keep running tests and the government would pay for my schooling which sounded really good to me because I know that troubles Momma a lot. I said as long as I don't get hurt I'll do whatever they need since I know there are some people who like to hurt mutants, and if I got hurt that would hurt Momma and I don't want that to happen.

Then their eyes got kind of shifty and squinty like when my friends know something they have to tell me but really don't want to and then I knew that Momma wouldn't be coming with me. They told me not just that but that I probably wouldn't see her very often, like only two times a year, and that hurt me. I really didn't want to leave Momma, but she told me that it was my choice and she still loved me and it would hurt her not to see me but she also knew that I may be able to help a lot of people. But it was my choice, she said. My choice.

And then I remembered something that one of my friends said after I saw a kid with mean parents call him a mutie in the hall and spit at him and run away laughing and my friend hadn't done anything. His power is that he can focus sunlight into a very tight beam like a magnifying glass just using his hands and I was far enough down the hall that he still had his power so I asked him why he didn't get back at the kid. He said his father told him that there would always be people like that and that using a power to do mean things like that only makes people fear and hate us more, and even if he hadn't had a power it is still better to help people than hurt them.

So I made my choice. I'd go with these people and let them run their tests and I'd let them figure out how to help all my friends so that they wouldn't have to be afraid of their parents and other kids anymore, because they needed me to help people. Momma was proud of me and the suits were very happy and I got to ride in a guarded limousine and then a helicopter all the way to California over to this little island where they ran their tests and found out that yes I could help them with their project.

And I felt good. I could help.

* * *

Time dragged on most of the time. At first everything was really cool, I was CAT scanned and had MRI's and there was a lot of scientists and machinery. I had a clean white room to live in and I wore white clothes, and even some sweet white basketball shoes they gave me as a birthday gift. They told I could e-mail my mom so she knew I was okay, and I had a game system and toys and stuff in my room. When my hair started falling out from the chemicals they used from my surgeries and brain exams, they said I could stop if I wanted to, but I didn't. I wanted to help.

And at first, that's what it seemed like I was doing. I didn't see all the testing they did, but a short time after my fifteenth birthday, they told me that it had worked. They'd created a cure, they told me. _The_ _Cure_. The cure for being a mutant.

I was skeptical. My powers were only temporary, anyway, so how could something derived from them be permanent? But they assured me, they tried it, and it didn't wear off. It was a cure. It was what everyone had been waiting for.

That was the beginning of the end.

I know because I was flipping through TV channels and I passed a news station running the phrase 'Mutant Cure?" across the tickerline. Then I passed another. And another. And the pictures changed from a calm reporter to field shots of angry mobs. Protestors. Pro- and anti- mutant groups alike.

Then there was the demonstration. The man with the wings. When he flew away, into the sky like that…it was something beyond anything I'd ever seen. It was beautiful. But it made people angry.

And then…

…then…

…then this.

This war.

I can hear them. Outside the prison. I can hear the fighting.

I hear the shrieking of metal and fire and ash. The pound of blast waves and the thump of interrupted flights cut short as mutants' powers are stripped from their bodies. The scream of humans and mutants and I can't tell which is which anymore. It all sounds the same. It's the scream of death, of fear and anger and hate, and it all sounds the same to me.

And when that girl found me, and she led me out, and I was outside, the bodies all looked the same. The bodies all disintegrated the same, and everyone ran together from the woman who tried to destroy us all.

Death. Death was everywhere and it didn't matter who or what you were.

And it was all because of me.

They were all fighting

and dying

because of me.

And what I am.

And I was only trying to help.

And now, in the aftermath, I stand with these four vials in my hand, all that is left of The Cure.

They can't ever make more without me. They need me. Mutants and humans alike died fighting over me.

And I wonder if this is really the answer.

There's always a chance it won't work. That I can't use my own powers against myself.

But if it does…

…if this works…

I don't know. I don't know what to do, Momma.

I keep thinking of all those faces. Those screaming, terrified faces of mutants realizing they have been raped of what makes them what they are. The humans who died only because they were following orders. All those faces that shattered into a million atoms of dust because they went to defend their species.

But then I think of that man. The man with the wings, flying away, staying himself. Staying free. Of his own choice.

These four vials are My Cure. They are of me.

But are they are _for_ me?

Which would _you _choose?


End file.
